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C2F Cinema: Legion Roll Call: Jo & Teri-Anne Sanning

In the few months since the C2FCinema came online, fans have seen a varied mix of short movies based oncomic books and superheroes, including studio trailers, fan films (bothbig-budget and no-budget), flash animations and more.

The two animated trailers for"The Legion of Super-Heroes" have to be counted among the mostinteresting. Done in the style of the old-school Marvel cartoons, whereanimations are applied directly to panels from the comics, the "LSH"toons are entertaining trailers for full-length features that will never be.

This week Eli McElmurray,founder of TheDC Live Action Comic Books e-mail group, sits down with Jo and Terri-AnneSanning totalk about the creation of these wonderful fan films.

LSH SYNOPSES:

"TheGhost of Ferro Lad" is based on the story and art from Adventure Comics No.357 (June 1967), and is an epilogue to that hallmark story in which theLegionnaire Ferro Lad sacrificed his life to save the galaxy from the threat ofthe Sun-Eater (Adventure Comics No. 352/353). The drama continues in"Ghost," as the four Legionnaires who witnessed their teammate'sdemise - Superboy, Cosmic Boy, Sun Boy and Princess Projectra - already dealingwith grief and guilt, are suddenly confronted by the vengeful ghost of FerroLad. The question is: Is it really the spirit of their dead comrade, or is itsomething else?

"TheEscape of the Fatal Five" is based on the two-part story from AdventureComics No. 365/366. Like "Ghost," "Escape" is a sequel toAdventure Comics No. 352/353 as well, since that story first had introduced theFatal Five - the deadliest villains in the galaxy. This time around, while ona covert mission to the distant planet Talok VIII, the Legionnaires discoverthat they had been lured there as part of the Five's plan to free themselvesfrom an inter-dimensional prison. As they plot to take over the United Planetsby controlling its very defense system, the villains bring the fight back toEarth and an epic battle must be fought for the championship of the universe!

Eli McElmurray (EM): Why did you choosethe Legion of Super-Heroes?

JoSanning (JS): The Legion of Super-Heroes are a favorite of ours for manyreasons. For one, we like its futuristic sci-fi setting. It always gives a storymore freedom of topics because they are "disguised" in alien trappings. Andlike the original Star Trek television series, the Silver Age vision of 30thcentury is an optimistic and hopeful one -- a concept that seems all but extinctin today's media. The Legionnaires represent mankind's strengths in the faceof adversity, and the Silver Age stories were about courage, sacrifice, andunity. And they weren't called the Legion for nothing!

Teri-AnneSanning (TAS): All those members and yet each one - from Mon-El toBouncing Boy - is a favorite to someone. You can easily imagine yourself a partof that group -- a team that draws its strength from its diversity. Andstory-wise, a large cast allows for change and development that a single herocan't really compare with. Look at all the Legion has gone through: LightningLad lost an arm... Triplicate Girl lost a body... Ferro Lad lost his life. Andthere were positive changes, too. The Adult Legion stories showed us newromances, families, and new careers for the characters.

EM: Why the Curt Swan version?

JS: Curt Swan is our favorite comic book artist and his work brings anunparalleled realism to any story his art graces. If it wasn't for Curt Swan'snatural art, I might not have been drawn to comics, and the Legion, in the firstplace. He's a big influence on my own drawing style and it's no surprisethat we dedicated our Silver Age Legion website to him.

TAS: The Legion during the Curt Swan/Jim Shooter run of AdventureComics in the late 1960s, represented a peak time for the Silver Age of DCComics. The art was great and the stories epic in scope. Just reading thosecomics makes you feel as though you're watching a movie; they're verycinematic, due in no small part to Curt's artistic vision. Curt Swan is simplythe best representative of the Silver Age of DC because he was the Silver Age ofDC and his artwork graced many covers even if the interior art was done bysomeone else. He unified the look of the Superman Family of titles this way.

EM: Why do this in the old Marvel Comics style?

TAS:"Tony Stark... makes you feel... he's a cool exec... with aheart of steel...!" [laughs]

We'd like to think that our movies are a bit moreadvanced than those 1960s Marvel 'toons, but the comparison is a valid one andalso appropriate considering that these are 1960s Legion stories we'reanimating.

JS: We didn't start out saying"we want to make an old Marvel Comicsstyle cartoon", but it evolved that way because we are comic book purists. Andas much as we hope that any comic-to-film adaptation will be faithful to theoriginal characters and concepts, we are just as motivated towards showingpeople the beauty and excitement that made these Legion stories classics. Inmaking an animated film, the best way to be faithful is to incorporate theoriginal artwork as the basis for that animation.

EM: What is the reason for not doing the whole comic?

JS: Unfortunately, neither of us is from the planet Cargg, where everyone cantriplicate themselves. That means we only have so much free time with which todo the things we enjoy. As just a trailer, "Ghost of Ferro Lad" wascomprised of nearly 1,500 separate pictures; "Escape of the Fatal Five" hadeven more at over 2,300. That takes a lot of time for two people.

TAS: Then there's the fact that our host site normally downloadsinformation at a rate of about 1 MB per minute (longer if more people are usingit). So basically, a 3 minute trailer of 30 MB size takes a half-hour todownload. Imagine how long it would take to download a half-hour cartoon of 300MB! As much as people have commented on the slow download time, if it wasn'tfor author Thomas Harlan's generosity in hosting our movies we wouldn't beable to show our movies to anyone at present.

EM: Why did you choose these two stories?

TAS: The first movie we made,"The Ghost of Ferro Lad", wasinspired by a friend and visitor to our site, Jackie Griffin. She mentioned thather two favorite Legionnaires were Brainiac 5 and Princess Projectra. We thoughtthat was an interesting choice, since the two characters are so different fromeach other; one ultra-technological and one mystical -- science versus magic, soto speak. This opposition of natures is played out best in the "Ghost"story, where the Princess wants to hold a séance to communicate with Ferro Ladand logical Brainy finds it hard to go along with it. There's an obviousdramatic conflict between the Legionnaires and the Ghost but there's also asubtle conflict between the members as well and that's interesting to read. Wethought it would make a great movie scene to watch and so we animated it.

JS: We'd already animated numerous small GIFs of the Legionnaires usingtheir powers for our site, and before that we'd made a couple of Legion "radioplays" based on stories just for fun. So it felt natural for us to combine thetwo concepts and take the next step into producing an animated mini-movie. "Ghost"wasn't originally made to be a "trailer" per se, just a scene, but as anafterthought we added an opening and closing segment to make it seem more like amovie trailer. By comparison, "Escape" was conceived from the get-go to bean action-packed trailer, although it's got plenty of drama and even a splashof romance, too.

EM: What type of program did you use?

JS: We used several programs to create the movies. Each comic panel we deem"workable" - and by that we mean has strong animation potential and justlooked fun to play with - has to be scanned in first. 

Adobe Photoshop plays amajor role in the next part of the process as each panel has to be cleaned up(i.e. removing dialogue balloons, correcting color gaffes, etc.). 

Next, we haveto decide which elements in the picture will be moving ones then isolate thoseby copying them onto a different layer. The backgrounds consequently must bedrawn in so they appear whole when the original objects or persons are removed. 

Various parts of people and different facial expressions have to be drawn in andeach placed on a separate layer, which acts much like the different cels intraditional animation. Every time we move someone to a new position or panacross a picture or fade to another, we flatten the picture, save it as anotherfile, and number it according to sequence.

TAS: We record dialogue and soundtrack using a program called SoundForge. Each part is timed out so we can determine how a character's mouth willmove and what their accompanying expressions will be. Finally, we assemble allthe individual pics into a movie using an image sequencing program then combinethe video and audio files into one MPEG.

EM: Who did the voiceovers?

JS:For "Ghost", I did something like five voices and Terri-Anne and ourfriend Pat Rajotte did one each, so for "Escape" we'd decided to get abigger cast. Getting everyone together, however, proved to be a difficult task. 

We did end up with one more person, though, and it proved to be a brilliantpiece of casting. Richard Siegel, an award-winning filmmaker in New York, hadmet us through our site a few years ago, and he generously agreed to do thevoices of Brainiac 5 and Tharok. When we received a tape of his dialogue we wereblown away by his fantastic rendition of Tharok - it was scary and chilling --just perfect! Our friend Rich is a great guy and we're so thankful for hisefforts.

TAS: I really like Jo's Superboy voice, which he patterned after BobHastings' Superboy from the 1960s cartoon. I tried to give Shadow Lass aunique voice myself by mixing a few accents - French and Russian, mainly. Ihope people enjoyed the result.

EM: Are there plans to do more?

JS: We'd like to do the Mordru the Merciless story from Adventure ComicsNo. 369/370 next. We've already picked out the soundtrack. John Williamsagain, this time from Harry Potter, which is very appropriate really,considering both stories feature evil sorcerers.

TAS: And, of course, Richard Siegel has already been"signed up"for the role of Mordru.

EM: Would you do this on a consignment and if so how much would it cost?

JS: Well, our movies cost nothing to make (although we do pay for it inblood, sweat and tears!) but we wouldn't want to make a profit off any of ourLegion movies, since DC Comics owns the rights to the stories and artwork, notus. One day we may do animated movies of our own creations, though.

TAS: Of course, we wouldn't mind accepting money from WarnerBrothers for doing the Legion! If they ever want to make a live-action film, we'vebeen playing around with a script for quite a while.

EM: Are you happy with how it turned out?

JS: Yes, it's been a learning experience for us, and we've tried toimprove our animating technique with each movie. "Escape" is light-yearsahead of "Ghost" in terms of complexity. 

We introduced a 3D element by usinga form of "multi-planing" - that is, having background elements move at aslower rate than foreground elements, which pan faster because they're closer.This gives the subtle illusion of depth. 

We also had lots of "FX" shots,with lighting blasts, objects disintegrating, etc. We also tried to make thecharacters move more realistically, particularly in their facial expressions. 

Our motto was: "these are real actors in a live-action movie deliveringdramatic performances" and we worked towards that goal. It's really liketaking the realism and naturalism that is Curt Swan's art and taking it to thenext level.

TAS: Sound-wise,"Escape" had added depth, as well. We actuallyhad a sound FX track this time, something "Ghost" didn't have. We hope topush the boundaries for the next trailer and make "Mordru" as much ahead of "Escape" as"Escape" was ahead of "Ghost".

JS &TAS: Thanks for the interview, Eli, it was fun! And we hopeeveryone will drop by ourwebsite and further explore the Silver Age Legion universe!

If you haven't seen them yet,go to the C2F Cinema and view and review the animated trailers for TheGhost of Ferro Lad and TheEscape of the Fatal Five.